Universal basic income

To keep in check my potential over-enthusiasm of crypto; I listen to a few podcasts that are inherently traditional; e.g. Macro Voices or a new one called Inside Baseball with Old Chestnut. This week's macro voices podcast was great from the thoughts of central banks being forced into putting in place "control mechanisms" or some may call "currency manipulation" steps. However, one aspect of it that tickled my senses is the inclination to think that crypto; or bitcoin; will have to be banned else it will siphon off USD or other fiat currencies. There may be some truth to such thoughts however I certainly hope the decision makers are well aware of the good that crypto has done; especially over the past 20 months.

Lets take just one example; air drops: These past months have seen a large demand for UBI (universal basic income); populations have been short of their needs. In a twist of fate (or maybe crypto manipulation) the protocols decided to give back to their users by issuing air drops. Air drops are essentially tokens issued to those who have proven to have met a set threshold in participation of protocol by certain time e.g. dydx - a defi trading exchange.

• if a person had deposited $100; they would have gotten tokens worth $5k,
• if a person had trading volume of $1m; that would result in tokens worth $100k+.

Indeed the airdrops can be gamified (and VCs are making hand-over-fist) but it's the optics that matter at a time when every little $ helps. In my mind; every macro scenario does not have to end with bitcoin being banned or fiat shorters winning - only a plane of equilibrium would solve this, otherwise there is bound to be greater "factionlisation" and friction amongst the populace and its representatives.

In other news:

ETH2 dev efforts are on-going. The ETH1 and ETH2 teams have been conducting a merge workshop in Greece where they have managed to create a functioning dev network that transitioned from ETH1 (proof-of-work) to ETH2 (proof-of-stake). As the two "versions" of ETH will stay live post-merge for quite some time the aim was to see it working and transactions being processed as BAU. They managed to do it so that's good news for now.

Lastly, there will be an upgrade^[1] occurring on ETH2 network targeted for Oct 27. This is one and only real-life practice run prior to the merge. If any hiccups occur then the merge will be pushed back further. I am hearing some noise about folks already thinking of Q2 2022 as potential date for the merge. I am wondering if long puts for that date would make more sense.